Disney requires too much planning? Are they shooting themselves?

[nkereina]

I knew NOTHING about the ins and outs of Disney travel on our first trip. It's a miracle we had any fun at all. I will tell you what though, we LEARNED so much through our experiences, what to do next time, and what not to do ever again. By the time we went on our second trip, I had discovered Tourguidemike.com. I had researched and read up on things. On our second trip, we were more prepared. Each and every trip we take to WDW, we get better and better at it all.

Sometimes people just have to live through experiences to learn what they like and how to maximize their fun and comfort. There are some things I don't mind practicing to get better at, and visiting WDW is one of them.

That's exactly right. I would say many, if not most of WDW visitors are the "average" traveler. Or people who don't travel much at all. My MIL and FIL went with their grandkids last year and they never travel anywhere, hadn't even been on an airplane in 15 years. So it's unreasonable to think people like that will start thinking about their trip 180+ days in advance and will do enough research to understand the importance of making ADRs and FP+'s early. So I do feel for those kind of people.

All of that being said - I do agree many of the complaints are not warranted. But I know a few who have gone on first trips without planning but still had a great time because they didn't know any better. They weren't phased by 90 minute standby waits - in their minds, it was Disney and that came with the territory.

 

[mshanson3121]

You basically just repeated everything she was already saying

You're overly complicating things. You're thinking way too much like a DISer and less like how an average person visits places like this. It's why I have very simple basics.

Consult a crowd calendar? Hogwash. What average guest out there even knows that a crowd calendar exists much less knows how to use it much less knows how each person formulates their crowd calendar. Your average guest isn't even trying to figure out if a Tuesday is a better day to go to MK versus a Saturday. I simply looked at park hours and went from there. The first park day may simply be based on favorite park to go to. Now park hours need to be available lol so that's part of a problem recently with WDW. I don't think much is going to change to get Disney to release park hours further out than they do. Crowd calendars means zip natta nothing in the real world. How many darn times do people talk about Touring Plans where it was a predicted number and it was updated later on. What did having that knowledge mean anything if it was predicted to be a 6 and turned out to be a 9? Then you have blips like hurricanes. I looked just for fun at Touring Plans when planning for my September trip long after I had made the reservation--- then Irma hit. None of those predictions, even though they were low to begin with, will mean anything then because the crowd level was zilch. Worked out in our favor for sure. I made my decision purely on cost. It cost less to go the week I went versus the week later.

What are the most popular rides? Hogwash. Why would you need to know that? The most popular ride may not even be one you want to go on. I didn't have any interest in going to BOG for food so knowing that it was the hardest ADR to get meant nothing to me. If I had wanted to go to BOG not knowing it was the hardest to get ADR still would mean nothing to me because all the average person sees is they went to reserve a time and date and saw no availability. If there was availability they would have no concept of desirability or not. Maybe they even tweak times or dates and find availability then. It's no different than looking for a reservation for a restaurant elsewhere. Availability is there or it's not there. We just made a reservation last night for our anniversary dinner tomorrow. They had 6pm, 6:16pm and then it went to 7:45pm. It would be fairly easy for me to complain that "I wanted a dinner reservation for 2 people for 7pm and they didn't have it and their times are awful and it sucks yada yada yada".

Historic wait times? Hogwash. Why would you need to know that? What good is it going to do? Let's say you decide to book well in advance. How is historic wait times going to work for something like FOP which is newer. How is wait times going to work for something like a refurb which can increase wait times, etc. Average folks are unlikely to even think about what the wait time for 7DMT was back in September 2017 for their trip in September 2018.

Tickets? Well currently it's only 1 day tickets that are dependent on season though multi-days are in the cards for the future. Somehow people manage to do it with Universal where you buy date specific Express Passes. Ticket-wise the extras are pretty darn simple. It's just Memory Maker, Park Hopper and Park Hopper Plus. Park hopping isn't rocket science to understand. It simply allows you access to more than one park per day. It's not a new concept but other companies may market it as a Combo pack or something like it. The Park Hopper Plus just adds in water parks. Memory Maker is probably the harder one because it's less familar.

I think you need to think of it in terms of what information do you want to know. Your average guest does not equate to an uber exhaustive want to know the ins and outs I need to know if a 7:45am breakfast is better than a 7:30am breakfast, should I go to MK on Saturday the 14th or Tuesday the 17th, should I RD 7DMT or opt to go to the other side of the park and get less waits,etc type guest.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

You basically just repeated everything she was already saying

Hmm not really. Her comment was phrased in that you needed to know that information to do those things. Mine was you don't.

~Could you do it based solely on the information available on Disney's website? I think it's possible, but I also think the site would leave you with many, many questions...thus the need for websites such as this one.

~you've got to know what park you are going to be in on what day two months before you leave. To know this, you would have consulted crowd calendars--something the average person certainly won't do. You would have to know what are the most popular rides, what are the historic wait times, and you would have to have at least a semblance of a schedule for each day...again, not something most people are going to have 60 days out.

~all of the research, planning, and consulting which would have already had to have been carried out a full 6 months before leaving.

~buying tickets quickly becomes incredibly complicated when the different extras, dates, seasons, and features are added in.

If your mindset is the average guest needs to know those things in order to have a good time that is distinctly different than recognizing the wants and needs of the average guest. Your average guest doesn't care to know about many of the things in the other post. It doesn't mean they will have a bad time.

 

[MrInfinity]

Come on. Disney World is one of the easiest things to plan. Seriously. It's all on one single website. You go to the site and it holds your hand thru booking a hotel and tickets. Dining reservations are easier to make at Disney World than anywhere else and picking 3 rides per day is easy too. We had our kids do our FastPasses this time. I could book a trip for next weekend and be on the site and done in 30 min. Hotel-Tickets-Dining-FastPass.

Now compare to any other vacation. One where you stay a week and visit a world-renown headliner every day, perhaps with several hard-ticket events, and mix in a few attractions that have just opened that year. Pick this in any city anywhere. It will take you way more planning, time, websites and phone calls.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

All of that being said - I do agree many of the complaints are not warranted. But I know a few who have gone on first trips without planning but still had a great time because they didn't know any better. They weren't phased by 90 minute standby waits - in their minds, it was Disney and that came with the territory.

My threshold is 45-60mins for a ride. Others here on the Boards have said they will walk right on past anything more than 20mins. When you see a complaint I don't think it's often phrased in enough detail to really get it.

One person could say: "Everything had such a long wait I can't believe this it was line after line after line, Johnny just wanted to go on that mine cart coaster and it was too long of a wait" while another person could say: "We had such a great time, that mine cart coaster was cute and I didn't find myself dreading the wait. They had neat details in line, we didn't find the lines throughout too bad"

And unfortunately with FL heat is a factor for a good long portion of the year. People's tolerances to things seem to lessen when it hot out with sun baking down on you.

When it comes to negatives in any reviews for anything like vacations, hotels, products, books, etc I take it with a grain of salt. I often look for user error vs company/product error. I look for reasonable vs unreasonable, etc.

 

[mshanson3121]

Hmm not really. Her comment was phrased in that you needed to know that information to do those things. Mine was you don't.

~Could you do it based solely on the information available on Disney's website? I think it's possible, but I also think the site would leave you with many, many questions...thus the need for websites such as this one.

~you've got to know what park you are going to be in on what day two months before you leave. To know this, you would have consulted crowd calendars--something the average person certainly won't do. You would have to know what are the most popular rides, what are the historic wait times, and you would have to have at least a semblance of a schedule for each day...again, not something most people are going to have 60 days out.

~all of the research, planning, and consulting which would have already had to have been carried out a full 6 months before leaving.

~buying tickets quickly becomes incredibly complicated when the different extras, dates, seasons, and features are added in.

If your mindset is the average guest needs to know those things in order to have a good time that is distinctly different than recognizing the wants and needs of the average guest. Your average guest doesn't care to know about many of the things in the other post. It doesn't mean they will have a bad time.

I disagree that the average guest doesn't care to know. Quite the opposite. Many expressed the sentiment wishing that they had known. Rather, I think it's more accurate to say the average guest doesn't realize the information is out there or that it's even necessary to look for it.

 

[mshanson3121]

Come on. Disney World is one of the easiest things to plan. Seriously. It's all on one single website. You go to the site and it holds your hand thru booking a hotel and tickets. Dining reservations are easier to make at Disney World than anywhere else and picking 3 rides per day is easy too. We had our kids do our FastPasses this time. I could book a trip for next weekend and be on the site and done in 30 min. Hotel-Tickets-Dining-FastPass.

Now compare to any other vacation. One where you stay a week and visit a world-renown headliner every day, perhaps with several hard-ticket events, and mix in a few attractions that have just opened that year. Pick this in any city anywhere. It will take you way more planning, time, websites and phone calls.

Just because the website takes you through the steps doesn't make Disney easy to plan. The majority of people on this board have made that quite clear. We've planned every other trip far easier than Disney. But it's great that you find it so easy.

 

[Hikergirl]

I hated the planning of my first couple trips. I hated feeling "stuck" with my schedule for what park, what ride, where to eat at what times. And that was before FP+ having to know what park and what ride you wanted 2 months ahead of time, and I'm pretty sure ADR's were only 90 days at that point (which is still too far out to know what/where you want to eat).
I decided that future trips would be go with the flow, with very minimal planning, and we have a much better time doing it that way.
I don't know if I could do that for a first trip though and still love it. You would at least have to have some knowledge about things like when crowds are the lowest, what attractions are the most popular and have the longest SB lines, same with restaurants if you want to eat at a specific one. If you show up Easter week and expect to walk on rides, and walk in and eat you are going to be disappointed, unless you really love waiting.
I do agree with the pp. the WDW website does not emphasize the true need to have a plan (for a first visit). I would have never known the level of planning that could go in to a WDW vacation had I not had a relative who frequents WDW and told me.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I disagree that the average guest doesn't care to know. Quite the opposite. Many expressed the sentiment wishing that they had known. Rather, I think it's more accurate to say the average guest doesn't realize the information is out there or that it's even necessary to look for it.

I don't think the average guest complains they wish they had agonized over crowd calendars (keep in my most don't even know those exist to want to know the knowledge), I don't think the average guests complains that they wished they had consulted with strangers about what restaurant to take their family too, historic wait times, etc.

What I can see a guest wishing they had known is that FP+ exists and how to use it and that in order to do sit-down you need a reservation, etc

Most people go when they can go. I had the flexibility of going whenever I wanted therefore I selected based on cost to go the week I went vs the next week.

How many times have you see a complaint about "well I didn't do that FastPass thing because it costs money" "I didn't know FastPass existed"..I don't see many complaints on "I wished I had known that at 3:15pm Touring Plans expects a drop in wait time today for 7DMT"

My whole point is it's not necessarily. Bits and pieces of things may be helpful which is why I talked about basics but it's not all necessary to the nth degree-good heavens that type of vacationing would be a death sentence for my in-laws it wouldn't enhance their vacation it would ruin it.

Sometimes people focus too much on what made their trip great and don't think about the fact that not everyone vacations the same way.

 

[Summer2018]

My threshold is 45-60mins for a ride. Others here on the Boards have said they will walk right on past anything more than 20mins. When you see a complaint I don't think it's often phrased in enough detail to really get it.

One person could say: "Everything had such a long wait I can't believe this it was line after line after line, Johnny just wanted to go on that mine cart coaster and it was too long of a wait" while another person could say: "We had such a great time, that mine cart coaster was cute and I didn't find myself dreading the wait. They had neat details in line, we didn't find the lines throughout too bad"

And unfortunately with FL heat is a factor for a good long portion of the year. People's tolerances to things seem to lessen when it hot out with sun baking down on you.

When it comes to negatives in any reviews for anything like vacations, hotels, products, books, etc I take it with a grain of salt. I often look for user error vs company/product error. I look for reasonable vs unreasonable, etc.

You're right. I don't wait...maybe 10-15 minutes while walking through a queue. That's why we get up early and rope drop. We do the short or no line rides, FP the longer lines, etc. I have no patience for waiting in the heat with a sore knee (torn meniscus). I will have a wheelchair to use as needed this time which might increase my ability to wait a little longer. I know people who truly believe that waiting in line for an hour is part of the experience...that would be their experience, not mine per se.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

You're right. I don't wait...maybe 10-15 minutes while walking through a queue. That's why we get up early and rope drop. We do the short or no line rides, FP the longer lines, etc. I have no patience for waiting in the heat with a sore knee (torn meniscus). I will have a wheelchair to use as needed this time which might increase my ability to wait a little longer. I know people who truly believe that waiting in line for an hour is part of the experience...that would be their experience, not mine per se.

My husband and I got really really really insanely spoiled by Irma. It's going to be hard to go back to longer than walk on rides .

But seriously it's not that I would want to wait in a line for 45-60 mins but that at that level it's not a horrible terrible wouldn't pay me to go back to type situation. I think it is something though about the line being part of the experience that people talk about. I know right now FOP is the main one for WDW but with Universal it's HP since EP was added. I do think there's a point though where majority of people say "yeah a 2, 3, 4 hour line..no thank you" lol.

For like 5 or 6 years we traveled with the in-laws right around July 4th. No where we went was cool. They were all hot and usually consisted of mix of touristy type places and unique places. The level of frustration as far as lines, heat, cost would be roughly the same for them as it would be if they went to WDW. Their needs for going slower, their needs for a/c during multiple points of the day (pretty sure mother-in-law would buy one of those WDW souvenir fan spritzers and then complain about carrying it around all day lol), even shade won't fully be best. We did Arlington Cementary 2 years ago with their covered hop on and hop off bus and it was still hotter than heck and tiring, so was walking around Naval Academy in Annapolis, etc. I'll also fully admit no matter where I go I suffer from being hangry . That 5-10min extra wait at the QS counter seems like eternity when that happens

On the torn meniscus part..my mom had that years ago-had knee surgery and now years later on that knee she needs a full replacement unfortunately for health care coverage she has to do xyz before they will even think about covering it. But I know how that can be impacted. She can neither stand nor sit for a really long time otherwise her knee as is will lock up. *Hope your knee gets better

 

[Summer2018]

My husband and I got really really really insanely spoiled by Irma. It's going to be hard to go back to longer than walk on rides .

But seriously it's not that I would want to wait in a line for 45-60 mins but that at that level it's not a horrible terrible wouldn't pay me to go back to type situation. I think it is something though about the line being part of the experience that people talk about. I know right now FOP is the main one for WDW but with Universal it's HP since EP was added. I do think there's a point though where majority of people say "yeah a 2, 3, 4 hour line..no thank you" lol.

For like 5 or 6 years we traveled with the in-laws right around July 4th. No where we went was cool. They were all hot and usually consisted of mix of touristy type places and unique places. The level of frustration as far as lines, heat, cost would be roughly the same for them as it would be if they went to WDW. Their needs for going slower, their needs for a/c during multiple points of the day (pretty sure mother-in-law would buy one of those WDW souvenir fan spritzers and then complain about carrying it around all day lol), even shade won't fully be best. We did Arlington Cementary 2 years ago with their covered hop on and hop off bus and it was still hotter than heck and tiring, so was walking around Naval Academy in Annapolis, etc. I'll also fully admit no matter where I go I suffer from being hangry . That 5-10min extra wait at the QS counter seems like eternity when that happens

On the torn meniscus part..my mom had that years ago-had knee surgery and now years later on that knee she needs a full replacement unfortunately for health care coverage she has to do xyz before they will even think about covering it. But I know how that can be impacted. She can neither stand nor sit for a really long time otherwise her knee as is will lock up. *Hope your knee gets better

Thanks. I’m dealing with exactly those issues. The knee locking is a real pain in the a$$. I have arthritis so my only option is total knee replacement.

 

[Nimbus]

You're overly complicating things. You're thinking way too much like a DISer and less like how an average person visits places like this. It's why I have very simple basics.

Consult a crowd calendar? Hogwash. What average guest out there even knows that a crowd calendar exists much less knows how to use it much less knows how each person formulates their crowd calendar. Your average guest isn't even trying to figure out if a Tuesday is a better day to go to MK versus a Saturday. I simply looked at park hours and went from there. The first park day may simply be based on favorite park to go to. Now park hours need to be available lol so that's part of a problem recently with WDW. I don't think much is going to change to get Disney to release park hours further out than they do. Crowd calendars means zip natta nothing in the real world. How many darn times do people talk about Touring Plans where it was a predicted number and it was updated later on. What did having that knowledge mean anything if it was predicted to be a 6 and turned out to be a 9? Then you have blips like hurricanes. I looked just for fun at Touring Plans when planning for my September trip long after I had made the reservation--- then Irma hit. None of those predictions, even though they were low to begin with, will mean anything then because the crowd level was zilch. Worked out in our favor for sure. I made my decision purely on cost. It cost less to go the week I went versus the week later.

What are the most popular rides? Hogwash. Why would you need to know that? The most popular ride may not even be one you want to go on. I didn't have any interest in going to BOG for food so knowing that it was the hardest ADR to get meant nothing to me. If I had wanted to go to BOG not knowing it was the hardest to get ADR still would mean nothing to me because all the average person sees is they went to reserve a time and date and saw no availability. If there was availability they would have no concept of desirability or not. Maybe they even tweak times or dates and find availability then. It's no different than looking for a reservation for a restaurant elsewhere. Availability is there or it's not there. We just made a reservation last night for our anniversary dinner tomorrow. They had 6pm, 6:16pm and then it went to 7:45pm. It would be fairly easy for me to complain that "I wanted a dinner reservation for 2 people for 7pm and they didn't have it and their times are awful and it sucks yada yada yada".

Historic wait times? Hogwash. Why would you need to know that? What good is it going to do? Let's say you decide to book well in advance. How is historic wait times going to work for something like FOP which is newer. How is wait times going to work for something like a refurb which can increase wait times, etc. Average folks are unlikely to even think about what the wait time for 7DMT was back in September 2017 for their trip in September 2018.

Tickets? Well currently it's only 1 day tickets that are dependent on season though multi-days are in the cards for the future. Somehow people manage to do it with Universal where you buy date specific Express Passes. Ticket-wise the extras are pretty darn simple. It's just Memory Maker, Park Hopper and Park Hopper Plus. Park hopping isn't rocket science to understand. It simply allows you access to more than one park per day. It's not a new concept but other companies may market it as a Combo pack or something like it. The Park Hopper Plus just adds in water parks. Memory Maker is probably the harder one because it's less familar.

I think you need to think of it in terms of what information do you want to know. Your average guest does not equate to an uber exhaustive want to know the ins and outs I need to know if a 7:45am breakfast is better than a 7:30am breakfast, should I go to MK on Saturday the 14th or Tuesday the 17th, should I RD 7DMT or opt to go to the other side of the park and get less waits,etc type guest.

I’m confused. We seemed to be in agreement. You seem to be reiterating my whole entire point. Do you have to do all of these things to go Disney? No. You absolutely do not. And the average Disney guest certainly does not. That is my entire point. When you DO do them, however, it increases the probability of having a magical time at Disney, or—if nothing else—aligns expectations with reality. And that fact might explain why, as the OP observed, such a high number of average guests report a less then stellar trip. Or to put it another way: if you have done all these things (and the many more involved with serious planning) you are a lot less likely to be surprised and let down than if you have not. Which, I think, speaks to the OP’s point...a Disney trip is fairly complicated enough that there is a high percentage chance that the average person—going in with little to no planning—is going to have an unpleasant experience...or at least one that doesn’t meet expectations.

 

[MrInfinity]

Just because the website takes you through the steps doesn't make Disney easy to plan. The majority of people on this board have made that quite clear. We've planned every other trip far easier than Disney. But it's great that you find it so easy.

Ok, so if you agree that the one Disney site pretty much walks you thru everything, then what is unusually hard about planning? It's not like a trip to New York -- If you wanted to tour the Statue of Liberty and Empire State, take a cruise, ride the train, go to Coney Island, eat at 3 hard-to-get restaurants, take in a Broadway show, and go to a Mets game... THAT that would be a daunting task. It would require probly 20 phone calls and 50 websites, plus googling how to get everywhere, what you can walk to, which airport, where to book a hotel, how to get tickets -- and so on. Disney is ~ nothing like that. One site. You book everything on one site or by calling WDW-INFO. Hotel, tickets, dining at 180 and FastPasses at 60. Besides that, what else is there? Disney is pretty all inclusive. For a top world destination, it's pretty easy to book.

Think of it this way. If your fam was sent to Disney tomorrow... with 0 planning and 0 reservations. Would it really be a terrible time?

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I’m confused. We seemed to be in agreement. You seem to be reiterating my whole entire point. Do you have to do all of these things to go Disney? No. You absolutely do not. And the average Disney guest certainly does not. That is my entire point. When you DO do them, however, it increases the probability of having a magical time at Disney, or—if nothing else—aligns expectations with reality. And that fact might explain why, as the OP observed, such a high number of average guests report a less then stellar trip. Or to put it another way: if you have done all these things (and the many more involved with serious planning) you are a lot less likely to be surprised and let down than if you have not. Which, I think, speaks to the OP’s point...a Disney trip is fairly complicated enough that there is a high percentage chance that the average person—going in with little to no planning—is going to have an unpleasant experience...or at least one that doesn’t meet expectations.

Actually no we're not in agreement. That was my point.

Your comment of "When you DO do them, however, it increases the probability of having a magical time at Disney" which you have now said twice is part of my point. You don't need to do all that indepth crowd calendar, historic wait time, etc etc to have a 'magical' time. If that's what you needed to do to have a magical time great but it's not what everyone needs to do for a good trip. Your perception is if you didn't do all the indepth planning you're doomed to have a bad time.

Some people, I suppose it must be suprising based on the overall comments throughout the Board, manage to do just fine and dandy at WDW without all the ins and outs of indept planning. And some people do all the planning in the world and they don't have a 'magical' time.

As far as high number of average guests report a less than stellar trip..yeah no that's not even close to true. Majority of folks in general rant as the bad. Random example but I belong to a book website called Goodreads. I do not write a review for 99% of the books I read. I rate them yes but I don't review them. To review them they have to be terrible like really bad. Right after the parking charge for overnight guests was announced Disney's FB page got thousands and thousands of 1-stars. Is that indicative of a bad terrible non-magical trip? Nope it was just people complaining loudly about the parking fees-from just principle to cost comparison. Lord I know people who would just complain at having to wait in line to get into the park--realistic much? It's like you'd think the have never had to wait in a line to get into a place.

I do agree planning is needed (more the basics IMO) I don't agree with the level of planning-that is an individual preference and in no way guarantees a great time just by virtue of the level of planning you are talking about.

If someone wants to sift through 1,161,000 reviews on FB or the 21,060 reviews of WDW on TripAdvisor,etc have at otherwise it's just a snapshot. I'm sure if you visited right after the parking fees were announced a large portion of bad reviews were focused on that.

Just as a random very random review from FB:
"We just went at the start of April 2018. The crowds were insane. Wait times from 1 hour up to 4 hours for some rides. You couldn't turn around without bumping into someone. Fast pass system is a joke. Avatar ride was cool although we did have to wait in line for about 4 hours to experience it. Passed on other rides as the wait times were crazy. Very expensive. Friendly staff for the most part. Overall not worth the money. Never again! This is the condensed version."

Ok..so you may read that and say--that must be a new person who just didn't do their research--nope

Here's the conversation that followed--Yellow highlighting mark is to denote the original person:




If all you read was their very first statement I'm sure you'd get newbie, who just smdh didn't plan going on the wrong week probably didn't use FP strategically, etc when in reality it was a person who was going for the 3rd time, knew about FP, was really complaining about Club Level access to FP for $$ but at 90 days in advance vs 60 days in advance--heck even mentioning purchasing in one of the original poster's comments without the context that it was Club Level led to a clarification statement (like how I mentioned before about people thinking FP costs $), and also felt like they may be outgrowing Disney.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Thanks. I’m dealing with exactly those issues. The knee locking is a real pain in the a$$. I have arthritis so my only option is total knee replacement.

My mom is at that point as well. She's about to start the cortisol (I think that's what it was) shots. Last year just before she went to Vegas with us in October she had just completed her physical therapy. Doctor told her that insurance companies in his experience basically declines automatically for knee replacement surgeries unless the patient has done physical therapy and the shots until they don't work anymore. So even though I'm personally not going through it to what you're going through.

 

[mshanson3121]

Ok, so if you agree that the one Disney site pretty much walks you thru everything, then what is unusually hard about planning? It's not like a trip to New York -- If you wanted to tour the Statue of Liberty and Empire State, take a cruise, ride the train, go to Coney Island, eat at 3 hard-to-get restaurants, take in a Broadway show, and go to a Mets game... THAT that would be a daunting task. It would require probly 20 phone calls and 50 websites, plus googling how to get everywhere, what you can walk to, which airport, where to book a hotel, how to get tickets -- and so on. Disney is ~ nothing like that. One site. You book everything on one site or by calling WDW-INFO. Hotel, tickets, dining at 180 and FastPasses at 60. Besides that, what else is there? Disney is pretty all inclusive. For a top world destination, it's pretty easy to book.

Think of it this way. If your fam was sent to Disney tomorrow... with 0 planning and 0 reservations. Would it really be a terrible time?

It's not the physical act of booking it's the planning - having to make ADRs months in advance, book rides a month or more in advance which requires knowing where you'll be every day at what time, having to make sure you rises dinners all coordinate around shows etc.... You're far over simplifying Disney and far over complicating other trips. I mean have you actually read the planning posts in this board?

 

[MrInfinity]

It's not the physical act of booking it's the planning - having to make ADRs months in advance, book rides a month or more in advance which requires knowing where you'll be every day at what time, having to make sure you rises dinners all coordinate around shows etc.... You're far over simplifying Disney and far over complicating other trips. I mean have you actually read the planning posts in this board?

Yeah, but that's just planners being planners. You don't HAVE to do that stuff. I don't use crowd calendars, touring plans, fastpass priorities, or really anything else. I booked our hotel and dining at like 120 days out -- not 180. And you don't have to schedule your days unless you enjoy that. I do it because it's fun. But, you could send me to Disney World tomorrow -- no planning, no dining, no passes... and we'd still have a great time. I'd throw some FastPasses on our account while waiting in the airport. You're making it sound like having to book a dinner reservation is so much work. Out of 120 restaurants, 82 have availability for dinner -- tomorrow. That tells me there's tons of options to get food and it's not like I'd show up and be unable to find a place that sounds good to eat.​

 

[hsmamato2]

I 100% agree. The level of preplanning required at this point is staggering,and I don't blame people for not knowing what they're getting into,it's not like Disney is upfront about the difficulties of getting things done ahead of time. A few happy go lucky sounding texts about 'fastpass making fun' and 'skip the lines,it's a perk!' nonsense just doesn't work anymore. You really,really have to do a lot of detailed research in order to make a trip work. You have to understand that in most seasons, making FP at 7 am on the DOT,and working backwards is the only way to do the best rides(newest). Who learns that on their own? Food seems so complicated with ADR's made 6 months ahead of time, based on schedules you can only guess at,and where you WANT to be in 6 months time. I travel to quite a few destinations,and this one is the hardest work ahead of time. I hate the new process,I can't stand MDE,I dislike the ticketing, don't get me started on how I feel about 'magic' bands..... It's a mess IMHO. I know not everyone agrees with me, but this is how I feel. I hope to still enjoy some aspects of my upcoming trip, but feeling much less enthusiasm than in years past,due to the overplanning aspect of things. (yes,I know you can just 'wing it' and still live, but then you tend to miss on the highlights you really may want to do) and the IT on the Disney website is SO very BAD........ So bad. I never thought I'd reach this point in my life, but I prefer other vacations for now.

 

[nkereina]

Yeah, but that's just planners being planners. You don't HAVE to do that stuff. I don't use crowd calendars, touring plans, fastpass priorities, or really anything else. I booked our hotel and dining at like 120 days out -- not 180. And you don't have to schedule your days unless you enjoy that. I do it because it's fun. But, you could send me to Disney World tomorrow -- no planning, no dining, no passes... and we'd still have a great time. I'd throw some FastPasses on our account while waiting in the airport. You're making it sound like having to book a dinner reservation is so much work. Out of 120 restaurants, 82 have availability for dinner -- tomorrow. That tells me there's tons of options to get food and it's not like I'd show up and be unable to find a place that sounds good to eat.​

What you're saying is true but I think the problem lies with the people who expect to eat where they want when they want, ride without waiting 100+ minutes, etc. Then they complain about it. You can't usually waltz up to CRT or BOG at your leisure and sit down for a meal. People who do not know this are the ones who end up disappointed and complain.

In your scenario, being that you're on a Disney forum, you know and understand the benefits of planning your days, booking ADRs at 180 days, etc. You opt not to do these things which is fine, but you have realistic expectations - you know and are fine with eating wherever, you know what kind of lines to expect, etc. The average traveler may have high expectations and then are disappointed.